The historic 1973 Supreme Court decision known as “Roe v. Wade” that legalized abortion has been the target of repeated attacks by these groups.

But according to the Guttmacher Institute, which is pro-choice, the past five years have accounted for 27 percent of the more than 1,000 restrictions placed on abortion in America in the past four decades.

The pro-choice camp—which advocates letting women choose contraception or elect to end an unwanted pregnancy — is squared off against the so-called pro-life camp which opposes abortion.

‘Pro-life’ camp strengthened

Since 2010, the latter has been boosted as Republicans scored electoral victories in many US states. Conservatives who want to overturn “Roe v. Wade” go so far as to say the United States has become pro-life.

The restrictions take many forms: bans on the most commonly used medical techniques, long waiting times imposed on women who want abortions, administrative red tape for doctors who perform them, and the granting of legal status to fetuses from the moment of conception.

In many places anti-abortion activists have set up fake clinics—billed as crisis pregnancy centers—that lure in women seeking an abortion, and put them under psychological pressure to forego the procedure.

The bottom line is that at least 57 percent of women of childbearing age now live in a state considered to be hostile to abortion, says the Guttmacher Institute.

“Since 2011, anti-abortion advocates have pushed for the passage of state-level restrictions on abortion. More recently, they have also begun to propose anti-abortion bills at the state-level that purport to promote women’s rights,” said Sital Kalantry, a professor at Cornell Law School.

Such is the case in Texas. There, a law passed in 2013 obliges clinics offering abortions to have surgical facilities on par with those of hospitals.

The law, which is said to aim to protect women’s health, also obliges doctors who perform abortions to have admitting rights at a local hospital.

‘Abortion desert’

These restrictions—which are being weighed by the Supreme Court—have prompted more than half of the abortion clinics in Texas to shut down, advocacy groups say.

“It appears that the current principal political strategy of the anti-abortion activists is to impose such significant burdens on abortion providers that most, if not all of them, have to close their doors,” said Michael Dell, a specialist lawyer.

US media have begun to speak of an “abortion desert” in the South, from Florida to New Mexico, and in the Midwest, based on the accounts of hundreds of women forced to travel hundreds of miles to get an abortion.

Besides the distance, these women confront the challenge of having the time and money to make such trips.

Many fear the restrictions will lead women to turn to backstreet abortionists—or perform dangerous self-abortions.